A few more thoughts on that intern lunch

250.5

I almost didn't post my weight. Draft one of this post began with "I'm not going to post my weight today." I woke up late for work today, so I didn't really have time to go to the bathroom. It was one of those "stumble to scale, stumble to brush teeth, toss on clothes and get out the door" day. I, in fact, almost didn't weigh myself I was so late.

I'm extremely worried I won't have a loss this week. I'd need to drop 2.4 pounds day to day to even have a .1 pound loss week to week, which are not the best odds ever. I do have swings that big, though, and my weight this morning is artificially high, but it's still not looking great.

I did go to the gym on Saturday, and I'm glad I did so. Thank you all for encouraging me. I even tried running on the treadmill. It felt like I needed a bra for my butt. So, I think I perhaps am going to stick to the elliptical until I lose a bit more weight. I'm going to try to go to the gym today after work. If I don't mention tomorrow that I went, you all are encouraged to hassle me in the comments.

Last week, my post on the intern who wouldn't eat lunch generated two thoughtful response posts, one from Mrs. Sheila and another from Mommy2Joe. (Also, great comments on the post itself, I'd encourage you to read them if you haven't yet.) They both made good points about how we should try not to judge people for their food choices: for most intents and purposes I agree with that. (I think it's fine to discuss things here, in blog land, but it certainly would've been wrong if I'd come back from lunch and started gossiping with co-workers about the incident.)

Both of them also argue that we shouldn't subordinate our own eating plans to social/work situations: "But you know what? I’m trying to lose some weight right now. And it’s not easy, and I have to pretty much think about it every single minute of the day. . . . Maybe you care, maybe you don’t. But, it’s MY priority," wrote Mommy2Joe. "I have come to the conclusion I know what works for my body, and I won't 'take one for the team' to avoid being judged. You want to think I am so self centered that I only care about myself, then so be it. I can't eat your stinkin potatoes, and no matter how much you whine I won't even smell them!" said Mrs. Sheila.

Both of them, and many of the commenters, brought the issue into focus in a way I hadn't really thought about: what she was essentially saying with her actions was "sticking exactly with my planned diet is more important than minding my manners for lunch with my boss." Which to me says either she didn't understand that there were smart choices she could've made (picking at a green salad with no dressing is not many calories) or did realize those choices existed but valued dogmatism over being pragmatic.

One of the things Mommy2Joe brought up was that we would have been more accepting "If she was a vegan, or if she had severe food allergies, or if she just had dental work done." She's right, but I don't see any contradiction between the fact that those are acceptable excuses for doing something normally perceived as rude. "Not abandoning my moral principles that eating animals is wrong is more important than minding my manners for lunch with my boss." I don't share those principles, but I certainly understand the point. "Eating something I'm allergic to and needing an ambulance to be called is even more disruptive than not eating." That makes sense. "Not being in massive amounts of pain and needing to spend hundreds on new dental work is worth more than participating fully in the lunch."

She wasn't saying those things. She was saying "not picking at a salad and consuming maybe 15 calories is worth more to me than being respectful of my very important boss, who I'll eat lunch with precisely twice."

In the end, I think she made a bad choice, and conveyed a message that you don't want to convey. I don't know what got her to that point: as several of you pointed out, maybe she's lost massive amounts of weight to get where she is, maybe she had a big weigh in the next day. But, still, I don't see any of that as reason enough to not just order a salad to pick at.

It's a shame that we do have a culture of food, where it is rude in a business situation to not eat. And while individually, I'm going to strive to be someone who doesn't contribute to that, for now it is our reality, whether we like it or not. So, considering the circumstances, she made the wrong call, but I sure do wish the circumstances were different. In the mean time, I guess, we can all do our best not to judge, and not to contribute to the culture of food.

I've got a confession to make

Weight: 247.7

Finally a weigh in below my Tuesday number. It only took till Friday. I was glad to finally hit a new low, and gladder still to have crossed the 30 pound mark.

Okay, so I've got a bit of a confession to make: I haven't been going to the gym recently. Not just like, this week, but more like, "since the end of August."

One of the things I learned growing up was to always be extra nice to guards, doormen, receptionists, and secretaries. Big smile, say hello, ask how they're doing, and be genuinely interested in the response. Just how I've always been taught to act, and how I've always acted. One of the results of this, as I've grown up, is that I tend to develop a decently good relationship with whoever is working the front desk where ever I go.

My gym was no different. About two weeks in, the two guys at the front desk were clearly rooting for me. Shortly thereafter, they started pestering me about doing a spinning class. (It's worth noting that there's no additional charge for classes, so they weren't trying to upsale me or get me to spend more money.) "You'll love it!" one said. "You can go as fast or slow as you want!" said the other. I demurred, saying maybe another time. One night, when I was leaving, one of the two was alone at the desk. He told me I should really consider giving one of the classes a try, just once. In a moment of shocking honesty, I told him that I was scared, didn't think I was ready, and wouldn't even know how to use the bikes. He reiterated the "as slow or fast as you want" thing, and offered to show me how to use the bikes. I didn't really know how to give a flat out "no thank you," so said something along the lines of "maybe another time, I've really got to rush home."

A few days later, he said, "c'mon, the room's empty right now, and it's 20 minutes until the next spinning class. Let me show you how to use the bikes!" I agreed, and he showed me. At this point, I felt like I really had to do the class, and that I was being silly and overly scared. I decided to give it a try.

And?

I failed.

Literally. 15 minutes into the class I just couldn't keep going, and got off my bike and left the room. I was despondent. I don't try things and then fail. I just don't. I'm the sort of person who will throw myself wholeheartedly into a task after I set it. I could literally count the number of times I've set out to do a specific task and just blatantly failed at it. Each (rare) instance has effected me greatly.

I stumbled over to the elliptical machine and weakly put in 30 minutes on it, too embarrassed to leave past the front desk before the scheduled end of the class. When, at the appropriate "the class should be over now" moment I finally did leave, the front desk guys both excitedly asked me how it was. "Hard," I replied noncommittally.

"But the important thing is that you did it, Hadley. All those classes are is going from point a to point b. You did that. And every other time you go it's just going to get easier."

It was all I could do not to cry on the way home.

That was in late August. I haven't been to the gym since. Most days, I go for walks to get some exercise, but I haven't done high intensity stuff since that day.

I know what I need to do. I need to suck it up and get back to the gym. I'm scared, yes, but I'll get over it. The only way to do so is to face my fears and start going again. I can do this: I just need to, you know, actually do it.

Credit scores, reports, and the things we get from our parents

Weight: 248.7

So, I have a kindle. I love it. One of the things I love most about it is that you can download the first chapter for free of any book you're interested in. So, if I'm say, looking for a humor book, I can download a few chapters until I run into one that really cracks me up. Recently, I was looking for a personal finance book. I'm not in debt, but many personal finance begin with the importance of getting out of debt. One of the things that came up in several of the books was "Getting out of debt is a lot like losing weight."

Today's post is going to be a lot more about money than it will be about weight loss, but there's a lot of overlap between the two. As we travel this journey of self betterment, building healthy bodies, I think it's worth spending a bit of time to get our financial houses in order as well.

I've always been interested in finance. Through most of college I thought I would go into investment banking. Since before I can remember, I had a "junior" bank account and my parents encouraged me to save some of my allowance and birthday money, and later baby sitting earnings and writing prize winnings. (I'm not much of a writer these days, but in High School I won some substantive prize money through Scholastic writing competitions, including one for the best nonfiction portfolio in New York City.) In my senior year of high school, my father went with me to Citibank to help me open real, regular savings and checking accounts complete with a debit card. Growing up, I was instilled with things that I didn't recognize as good habits, but just accepted as truth: you don't spend more than you have, you pay your bills off in full each month, and you always pay on time.

(This is where one could note that there are all sorts of food lessons I didn't learn from my parents, like don't eat when you're not hungry, get in fruits and vegetables, avoid processed junk, etc, but let's not be negative.)

As someone with that interest in personal finance, I sort of knew that I was mostly on the right track. I'd been paying bills on time and in full, I've started saving for retirement through a Roth IRA, and I make sure to spend less than I earn. But for a good long while, I've known that there was something else I should have done that I just hadn't yet.

For a really long time, I was scared of finding out my credit report and score. In college, I had a small medical bill that my parents insurance was supposed to pay. I sent it to my mom, who swore she sent it to her insurance, and then no one ever followed up on it. This was in maybe February or March. Spring passed and I went home for the summer. That fall, I came back to find a whole host of letters about the apparently unpaid medical bill. I was furious at my mother (she said she'd taken care of it, although in hindsight, at 19 years old I should have been responsible enough to follow up on it myself) . I paid the bill immediately, and called my mother and cried and screamed and told her she'd ruined my credit and that I'd never be able to get a mortgage or a car loan and that potential employers would see it and that it would be her fault if I didn't get a job and just all these horribly nasty things. My mother and I don't fight often, and I wasn't the type of melodramatic kid who said stuff like that on a regular basis. I was, honestly, furious, and petrified that I'd have this black mark hanging over me for 10 years all because my stupid mother hadn't made sure the insurance paid a stupid bill. I literally wouldn't return her calls for weeks. It's among the most self indulgent outbursts I've ever had (really, a 19 year old can look into these things for herself) , but it also still ranks up there as among my most terrifying experiences to this day.

So, since that happened, 4ish years ago, I'd been afraid to check my credit report.

Well guess what I just did? I checked my credit report. Each year, you're entitled by federal law to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three reporting bureaus. The only place you should go to get this score is the official government site: https://www.annualcreditreport.com. Do not go anywhere else: freecreditreport.com, freetriplescore.com, all the other ones you see advertising on TV are all scams. Don't go to them, they're not free, and they're not legit, in spite of their catchy jingles.

The missed medical bill wasn't on there. But what was, was fabulous. In about 6th grade, my parents gave me a credit card to use when I went shopping with my friends. In the spring of 9th grade, my dad decided to have me use a different one that would give him rewards, but at the time I thought nothing of it. But there both cards were: each with a decade of beautiful on time payments. My own credit cards (I have two, one I got in college and a more recent one that gives rewards) were there too, each with their on time payments. The $1000 credit line attached to my checking account (which I've never actually used) was there too, with on time payments dating back to when I was a senior in high school. It was beautiful. There was an error that I'm going to mail them about to get corrected (the birthdate's off by a few decades) but other than that everything was all correct and filled with green boxes for years of accounts in good standing.

Then I went to check my actual credit score. This is the number between 300 and 850 that most people think about when they think about credit scores. Until recently, it was impossible to get your credit score for free. However, an ad-supported site called Credit Karma (sort of like mint.com) now lets you see your TransUnion credit score. I'm pretty cautious about providing personal information on the web, and will research sites a bunch before I'll input information. I've got enough sources to consider it safe.

And I did check it. The result: 766. High enough that I could actually qualify for the best mortgage rates at 23.

So right now, I'm just feeling thankful to my parents. For all the good habits they taught me growing up, and for the decade long record of on-time bill payments they gave me. I called them to thank them, and though I didn't apologize to my Mom (I possibly should have) , I did tell her that the medical bill did not show up.

Today, my financial house is much cleaner than it used to be. I'm glad I faced my fears and looked at the report. Knowing that I do have my finances under control makes me feel a lot closer to having my waist under control. Mostly, I feel like I'm getting closer each day to being the person I really want to be.

How closely do you think money and weight loss are related? Do you feel better than one than at the other? And the question I'm most curious about: do you check in on your credit report and/or score, and why or why not?

I also just want to quickly reiterate: please don't don't don't use a scam site. The only place to get the three annual reports you're entitled to by the government is https://www.annualcreditreport.com. The only reputable site for getting your credit score for free that I know of is https://www.creditkarma.com. Be extremely careful anywhere else, and avoid the credit sites that advertise on TV like the devil.

Ah, interns

Weight: 249.1

The scale's up, but scales do that sometimes when you weigh in every day.

So, I work in DC as low-level economist. I'm 23, and only a little more than a year out of college. Now, there are plenty of lame things about my job (low pay, long hours) and about DC in general (it's built on a swamp), but one of the cooler things is that you get interns.

Now, I suppose, technically, I don't get interns. My boss gets interns. But here's a secret about DC: 90% of things that don't involve cameras or schmoozing gets delegated. This semester, my boss has two interns, both of whom have masters degrees and graduated from college in the 1990s. In practice, however, this means I'm managing two people who are 10 years older than me, including occasionally asking them to make photocopies.

However each semester, before my boss starts ignoring the interns (aside from occasional "go ask Hadley" instructions), we take them out to lunch. Technically, I suppose, he takes us all out to lunch, but the point is it's always a good big fun long expensive but free to me lunch. Today was our lunch.

Both of our interns are hoping to transfer into policy from other careers. One of them, before this, was doing real estate in NYC. I'm probably, at one point, going to talk about the NYC thing. (I grew up there, all sorts of associated hang ups.)

But anyway, so we went out to lunch, and she said as the waitress was handing out menus "oh no thanks I'm not going to be able to eat anything off it." I replied back, sort of not sure what was up, "They have all sorts of vegan and vegetarian and whatever else stuff, and I'm sure they could work around any allergies" or something along those lines, just trying to make her feel like included and allowed. "I'm on Jenny Craig," she said back.

I'm going to just go out and for the record say she's not fat. Not at all. Maybe a size 8 or 10, if I had to guess. Not a stick, but well within normal.

When I was emailing the interns yesterday, I mentioned that it was a twice a semester (once at the beginning, once at the end) tradition, and that they should prepare any questions they had for our boss, since this is one of the few times they'll have him as a captive audience. I don't say this to be snide or to brag, but our boss is a big shot. This is a special thing. And every ounce of me was so blown away by the fact that she would come to this lunch and not eat, not even order a dressing-less salad to pick at.

Appalled is too strong a word, but it's the one that comes to mind. I was put off, maybe? I don't know. Then I felt bad and like I was being judgmental: who says you have to eat at social events anyway, and shouldn't I be supportive of anyone who's dieting since, after all, I'm going through the same thing? Why was I so thrown off by this?

Now I just don't know what to think.

Is it bad that I'm not as dedicated to my diet as she is? That I ate the restaurant's fatty food, and not even a salad but a Bacon Tomato and Cheddar sandwich? Is the reason she's thin and I'm not (yet) because I'm not willing to loudly proclaim "I'm on a diet so I'm not going to eat here"?

Or maybe it's not that I've not gone far enough, but rather that she's gone past the mark? Not eating at an important lunch like this is, quite frankly, a huge mistake. For the rest of the program, my boss is probably going to call her "whatshername, the intern who wouldn't eat lunch." (Our summer intern, who spent three years as a consultant and was one year into a PhD program at the London School of Economics is still known as "whatshername, the pescetarian" when on our initial lunch out she voted against a steakhouse and explained that she was a vegetarian except for fish.) We can't give up our lives, our work, for diets. It just won't work, and even if it does, are those sacrifices worth making?

I just don't know.

Recording post for GAG Week 2

If you're reading this post looking for regular posting, keep moving. I'll be using this post to keep track of GAG's week two challenge, which is as follows:

For every 8 oz of water you drink, you will give yourself 10 points.
For every 15 minutes of activity (NO house cleaning and "normal" activites should be counted here) outside of your normal routine give yourself 10 points.
(For clarification purpose: do not count housecleaning or regular daily activities. DO count all forms of exercise. )
For every day that you track your foods whether it be on your blog via in text or photos, give yourself 20 points.
For every evening you sleep for a minimum of 8 hours, give yourself 20 points!

Tuesday:

Water: 3 24oz bottles of water, or 9*8oz = 90 points
Exercise: none :( = 0 points
Food:
Breakfast: Cottage cheese, Banana. A little less than 200 calories.
Lunch: Catered work lunch of a turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato, bacon and mayo. Yeah, I know, badness. I'm guessing 600 calories.
Snack: 1/2 apple = 35 calories
Dinner: Lean Cuisine fettuccine alfredo over a pint of cut up cherry tomatoes. 15 small stalks of asparagus with one tablespoon of Parmesan cheese. ~425 calories
Desert: Healthy choice ice cream bar: 100 calories

Total: 1370

Sleep: 8 hours! so 20 points for that.

Points for Tuesday: 130

Food tracking for Wednesday:
Breakfast: Banana, cottage cheese = 200 calories
Lunch: Another lunch meeting, this one at a restaurant. I had a bacon cheddar and tomato sandwich, and even some (totally unnecessary but delicious) sweet potato fries. For food I don't control I like to guess up, and I'm going to go with 900 calories.
No dinner or Snack

Total: 1100

8 hours of sleep (20 points)
No exercise (0 points)
5 glasses of water (50 points)

Points for Wednesday: 90 points

Thursday:

Breakfast: String cheese, Dannon small light and fit yogurt, 140 calories
Lunch: Banana, roast beef sandwich, 300 calories
Snack: Chewy granola bar, 90 calories
Dinner: 1.5 pieces of Purdue perfect portions chicken, 12 stalks of asparagus, 2 cups of broccoli, 1 T of butter used to dress both the asparagus and the broccoli, 550 calories
Total: 1080

8 hours of sleep - sort of. I'm going to give myself credit for going into bed with the lights off and trying to sleep 9 hours before I needed to wake up. It took me hours to fall asleep, but I think it's reasonable to count intention here: 20 points

Water: 10 glasses = 100 points

I still didn't exercise!

Points for Thursday: 140 points

Friday:

Breakfast: Banana, 100 calories
Lunch: Grande skim latte from Starbucks, 130 calories
Dinner: disastrous. Mac and cheese, baguette, actual cheese, two glasses of wine, terrible. I'm guesstimating 1800 calories.

Total: 2130

6 16 oz glasses for 120 points
45 minute walk for 30 points
8 hours of sleep for 20 points

Points for Friday: 190

Saturday

No breakfast
Lunch: Smart Ones baked zitti, green beans with olive oil and garlic, 500 calories
Dinner: Lean Cuisine fettucini alfredo over a pint of cherry tomatoes, 400 calories
Desert: Milk, 100 calorie hostess cupcakes, 250 calories

Total: 1150

8 hours of sleep 20 points
45 minutes at the GYM! 30 points
2 24 oz bottles, 1 16 oz glass: 80 points

Points for Saturday: 170

Sunday:

Breakfast: Banana, cottage cheese, 200 calories
Lunch: 7 ribs. I'm having trouble finding exactly comparable calorie values, but it was less than a half rack. I'm going with 600, but I have no idea if that's right
Snack: 100 calorie hostess cupcake thing, 100 calories
Dinner: 3 cups of grapes, 180 calories (who knew grapes had that many calories? Or maybe it's just that 3 cups is a ton of grapes)

Total: 1080 calories

Exercise: 90 minute walk, 60 points
Water: 3 24 oz bottles, 90 points
8 hours sleep: 20 points

Points for Sunday: 190


Total for the week: 910